Talk:Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant

This article is not up to Wikipedia standard
I heard on the news today that this facility is ready to start operation. When I went to Wikipedia to find out more about it, I found a short introduction describing the facility and the rest of the article, apart from one sentence, about protests and seemingly unrelated issues. Criticisms are fine at the end of a factual article, but it's surely inappropriate to have an article entirely composed of criticism!Prosopon (talk) 02:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the improvements you made to the page. As for your message here, on the other hand, I have to disagree. This article is pretty much a rather good and clean article according to WKP standards. All issues tackled in the various sections are part of the notoriety of the Rokkasho Plant, such as it is, and are very much related to its very description. It's a nuclear plant that isn't still fully operational because it brought more problems than was expected and experienced troubles and dysfunctionings. Hence the waves of protests and opposition, that are, again, completely part of what makes this nuclear plant notorious and of what you would expect to read in a serious page that describes it. To take another example, if someone is famous for his crimes, it's fair to have the WKP page about him dealing extensively with those crimes. The article is not entirely composed of criticism, but hardly half of it, by the way and it seems a fair portraying of the reality and of the concerns induced by the plant.--5.249.14.10 (talk) 21:12, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

passed safety check
Mainichi Shinbun is reporting in this article, that the plant passed the safety check, but it will also take some time until the plant is opeating. --Ai24 (talk) 03:03, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Weapons usability
Article currently reads Despite nuclear industry claims to the contrary, it usable for powerful nuclear weapons. The reference given is Japan Times, 31 May 2017 article, one of whose authors is a weapon designer. which does not seem to be available online, and the ref does not name the weapons designer.

This appears to say in Wikipedia's voice that these nuclear industry claims are false. This is at least controversial, and currently gives undue weight to the view that this Plutonium is weapons usable. A ref to these industry claims, and to a better source saying that these claims are false, is needed as a minimum. Andrewa (talk) 10:34, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

contaminated plutonium
Breeding weapons-ready Plutonium is very tricky. It's like a toaster - if you don't heat the bread enough, it's not toasted. If you do it too much, it's burnt.

The breeding process involves taking Uranium 238, and bathing it in neutrons, in a nuclear reactor. A U238 nucleus absorbs a neutron and becomes U239. After a few decays, it becomes Plutonium 239, which is fissle and relatively stable, and can be used in reactors or bombs. Unfortunately, if it's still in the reactor, and still being targeted by neutrons, it can change further into Pu 240, and on to Pu241 and above.

Those isotopes have a tendency to spontaneously split, which spoils a weapon. It's a little like having dynamite that tends to set itself on fire, all by itself, at any time. Except, for a nuclear bomb to go off, there has to be a critical mass. So, it's OK, if the Pu metal is broken up into small chunks, far apart, as in a reactor. As long as you don't assemble all of them into .. a bomb.

Separating out those isotopes is kindof a fool's errand - they are all very radioactive. It's similar to Uranium isotope separation, which is already very dangerous because of the chemicals involved. Except the Plutonium is about a million times more radioactive than the Uranium (really - 4 billion years vs 24 thousand years).

This is a non-professional explanation, based upon my degree, and reading of wikipedia. OsamaBinLogin (talk) 21:09, 12 August 2023 (UTC)